Welcome to the seventh in our line of Loot 4 Less books, where we deal exclusively in items with a cost-to-consumer of 2,500 gp or less. That’s right: no epic equipment, Chariots of Apollo, or even moderate magic items here. This is a forum for the cheapest of the cheap, and that’s it. And just to up the level of difficulty, we also don’t deal in one-shot (or even two– or three–shot) magic items. No scrolls, potions, talismans, or fire-and-forget tattoo magics here. Everything in these pages is a legitimate permanent magic item, free of consumable charges and able to be used in adventure after adventure.

Here in Loot 4 Less, vol. 7: Krazy Kragnar’s Used Chariots we’re looking at just bargain bin magic chariots and wagons, popular wheeled conveyances any character can use. Not only do we provide each item with a full description and cost, we’ve scattered sidebars throughout the book to explain those costs. Each “Behind the Counter” sidebar explains how a price was arrived at, allowing GMs to apply the logic to other items with similar abilities (and be better able to change the pricing to suit the needs of their campaigns with a firm knowledge of where the numbers come from).

Unlike most Loot 4 Less volumes, for Krazy Kragnar’s Used Chariots we first need to define a mundane version of the items offered. There is no “chariot” in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (though there are listings for carriages and wagons in the equipment chapter). But chariots are common to many mythic and fictional fantasy adventure settings, and they definitely cost less than 2,500 gp, so even mundane chariots are legit fodder for this series of products—and having magic chariots takes just a bit more work. (Since we’re not likely to do Wacky William’s Well-Loved Wagons as a separate product, we’ve included magic wagons, carriages, and other vehicles in this product, as well.)

Ideally, chariot rules would be a sub-set of vehicles rules... which also aren’t found in the core rulebook. Of course, it’s beyond the purview of a magic item supplement to present extensive, realistic, comprehensive new rules for as broad a category as vehicles. Still, it is possible to create a simple set of general vehicle rules, and then just enough more to allow characters to use chariots without having to add an extensive new rules subset.

There are two basic premises behind our proposed vehicle rules. First, a vehicle is treated like a creature when it is attended by a driver (that creature being the same as the mounts harnessed to it), and as an object when it is unattended (even if a team of mounts is harnessed to it). Second, skills and feats that work with a mount also work with a vehicle. Realistically driving a chariot and riding a horse are very different, but the Pathfinder RPG uses broad categories to allow heroes to easily be good at related sets of things, and we want to match that design philosophy here.